Faith Hedgepeth | A 14 Year Mystery Ends With a Guilty Verdict

For fourteen years, a handwritten note on a takeout bag was one of the only things investigators had that might speak for the man who killed Faith Hedgepeth. Five words, scrawled in a bedroom in Chapel Hill. No name. No face. Just DNA that didn't match anyone. And then, in 2021, a traffic stop changed everything. Last month, a Durham County jury finally heard the case. This week, we're going to walk you through who Faith was, how the case went cold, how it broke open, and what happened at trial - including a brand-new motion that could put the whole thing back in front of a judge.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:19Derrick Levasseur?

  For 14 years, a handwritten note on a takeout bag was one of the only things investigators had that might speak for the man who killed Faith Hedgepeth. Five words scrawled in a bedroom in Chapel Hill. No name, no face, just DNA that didn't match anyone. And then, in 2021, a traffic stop changed everything. Last month, a Durham County jury finally heard the case. This week, we're going to walk you through who Faith was, how the case went cold, and how it broke open, and what happened at the trial, including a brand-new motion that could put the whole thing back in front of a judge. For those of you who are familiar with what I've done in the past, I had a show called Breaking Homicide, and

• 1:02Derrick Levasseur?

  we traveled the country investigating cold cases. And one of those cases was Faith Hedgepeth. I had the opportunity to go to Chapel Hill, to meet with Faith's family, to go back to the crime scene, although I didn't get to go into the apartment. And I was down there with Dr. Chris Mohandi, and we spent about seven days there. And then I was following the case after the fact, stayed in touch with Faith's father for a couple of years. And then, when this case broke open in 2021, we had a couple of conversations. And then I said, if you need me, let me know. Because he was like, at this point, I just got to focus on the trial. Because the reality is, when we were looking into this, everyone involved, and we're going to talk about the facts today, but everyone involved thought

• 1:46Derrick Levasseur?

  for sure this was someone that Faith knew, based on the circumstances surrounding the case, a previous lover, something of that nature, where things just went south after, you know, their relationship kind of unwound, or something of that nature. And, and I was one of those people. This, this person we're going to discuss tonight was not on the radar. He was not on anybody's radar. You always give that qualifying statement where it's like, oh, it could be an outlier, it could be a transient, it could be someone. But it's more of just, like I said, a qualifier, not what you think is truly going on. So with this case developing the way it did, I think it was a surprise to everyone. But I am glad, based on what we do know in this case, that we got someone. Because with a

• 2:27Derrick Levasseur?

  case like this, that's not often what happens. So, yeah, we'll get into it, we'll talk about it. And I know a lot of you were asking for it in the comments section, because many of you have been following us for a long time. And Faith was a case that I introduced to many of you years ago. So, yeah, we're going to get into it today and catch you guys up to where we are now in the case.

• 2:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Let's start with Faith, because obviously she should always come first. Faith Hedgepeth was 19 years old, a biology major at UNC Chapel Hill. She grew up in Hollister, a small community on the Warren Halifax County line in northeastern North Carolina. Her parents are Roland and Connie Hedgepeth. So, hold on to those names, because we'll hear from both of them after the verdict. In early September of 2012, Faith was staying with her friend and roommate, Karina Rosario, at the Hawthorne at the View Apartments on Old Chapel Hill Road, just outside the main campus area. On the night of September 6, the two of them went out to a club on Rosemary Street in downtown Chapel Hill called The Thrill. Faith was the designated driver that night. Prosecutors say she drove them home

• 3:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  around 2:00 a.m. Karina testified that she was drunk and sick when they got home. And later, she called a male friend to come pick her up, and she left the apartment. Reports put that somewhere around 4:00 to 4:35 a.m. Faith was left home alone, asleep in the bedroom. So, two details from that timeline window become huge later. First, a downstairs neighbor reported hearing loud thumps between roughly 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Second, the friend who picked Karina up told police, there was different reports, but he saw some blood on her person at some point, allegedly, according to him.

• 4:03Derrick Levasseur?

  I believe. And guys, you can correct us if we're wrong on any of this. But my recollection is that it was actually on a piece of her clothing, because law enforcement was hoping that she had left it behind there. And they went back to that guy's apartment after the fact to try to find it. They didn't.

• 4:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  They did not. And, you know, Karina had a lot of focus on her, not just because of that, because of the, the alleged, or whatever was kind of like a fight that happened at the nightclub before they left. There was, yeah.

• 4:31Derrick Levasseur?

  There's videos. So, and I don't know, I haven't read Stephanie's breakdown here. So Stephanie, if I'm stealing any of your thunder, just cut me off. But there's a video of them coming out of the club, security footage, where you see that, you know, you go there with a friend, you walk in together with a friend, and yet they walked out at different times. And that was something that we really focused on. A lot of people did.

• 4:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  We talked about it, yeah.

• 4:51Derrick Levasseur?

  And, and, yeah, because I think we covered this case as well, right?

• 4:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  We did, yeah.

• 4:54Derrick Levasseur?

  We did. I apologize. We've covered so many. And, you know, Karina was someone where, after the fact, her behavior was a little suspicious. And again, it goes back to-

• 5:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  We thought it was suspicious. We're not going to lie. I'd sit here and tell you that we weren't like, side-eyeing Karina a little bit.

• 5:07Derrick Levasseur?

  No, she wasn't very cooperative with anybody outside of like, the initial thing. She actually moved away, which that I don't completely blame her on. But there was always a suspicion, either it was someone Faith knew, or someone who knew one of them and came to the apartment, thinking they were going to be there.

• 5:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like I said, there's been a spotlight on Karina. The defense leaned on that at trial. They did really lean into that. So, they were aware that Karina was kind of, I would say, number one suspect in the public eye.

• 5:36Derrick Levasseur?

  She was a person of interest, because, to recap, she came home that night, and apparently wasn't feeling good. That's part of the reason they left the club. And so everyone's like, okay, they got out of there because she wasn't feeling well. But then, at approximately-

• 5:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  She had someone come pick her up.

• 5:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, she leaves.

• 5:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 5:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Which is convenient, considering that's the night that Faith is killed. And so it gives her an opportunity to not be there when whatever happened, happened.

• 6:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Definitely, we were side-eyeing her a little bit. Okay. So was everyone. So, later that morning, September 7, Karina came back with another friend and found Faith in the bedroom. She called 911. On the stand this October, Karina broke down describing the dispatcher, asking her to touch Faith to see if she was warm. She said Faith felt cold, and that waiting for the ambulance felt like an eternity. The autopsy found Faith died of blunt force trauma to the head. She'd suffered severe skull fractures and injuries across her body. Investigators also collected evidence of a sexual assault. Now, in that room, investigators found the evidence this whole case would eventually turn on, a bloodied Bacardi Rum bottle, they identified as the weapon, and a white takeout bag with a handwritten

• 6:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  note. And the note said, "I'm not stupid," followed by a slur, and the word "jealous." And that note, for years, people read it as personal, understandably, right?

• 6:56Derrick Levasseur?

  We dissected the [BLEEP] out of that note in person. You don't know how many hours Dr. Mohandi spent looking at that thing. He was texting me at 3:00 in the morning, like, what is this mean? You know, is this the person? Is it just unrelated?

• 7:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  It feels like it couldn't be unrelated, you know?

• 7:13Derrick Levasseur?

  You would think, right? I mean, unless she had multiple enemies, this is, these conversations is exactly what we had. Like, we're like, okay, it could absolutely be the person. But it could also be that she had other people who weren't fans of her and left that bag. It could be someone who, you know, lived in the area and-

• 7:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  But it's like, this bag is found in the room the night she's killed, and like, could it be unrelated? It's really hard to, to kind of find and live in a reality where it's not related. Yeah.

• 7:40Derrick Levasseur?

  I lost some years of my life trying to figure out how that bag played into all this. We even broke down the, the handwriting on the bag compared to Karina and some other people as well. Like, does it match it? You know, could it be their handwriting? We had a handwriting analyst in there. Insane stuff with the bag.

• 7:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, we figured whoever wrote it must have known Faith, or knew Karina, or knew both of them. And it's like, what are you jealous of? Of whom? It sent a lot of theories in the wrong direction. So, here's what's frustrating about this case. From day one, investigators did have DNA. They had semen, blood, tissue, the bottle, the bag. This was not a case with no evidence. And they swabbed everyone. Per the SBI, more than 400 DNA samples were collected over the life of the case, and more than 25 SBI agents worked on it. At trial, a state crime lab analyst listed name after name of people whose profiles were compared and then excluded, boyfriends, friends, acquaintances, people from the club. None of them matched. The profile also wasn't in the state or national

• 8:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  offender databases. And because of the note, and because of Karina's timeline, a lot of public conversation fixated on people inside of Faith's circle.

• 8:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 8:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Meanwhile, the person whose DNA was in that room ended up being a complete stranger.

• 8:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  He wasn't on any suspect list. In 2015, investigators released a DNA phenotyping composite, which we did talk about as well. In Crime Weekly, this was a computer-generated estimate.

• 9:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, the snapshot.

• 9:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. And this is what the unknown man might look like. And it did get attention. We talked about it. Like I said, I think we did a Crime Weekly News about it. But it didn't end up producing an arrest.

• 9:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. And that was from Parabon Nano Labs. They did what's called the snapshot. They're really good at it.

• 9:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Derrick Levasseur?

  And the, you could see, they actually create this image of what the person might look like. I remember sitting down with Chapel Hill Police Department, and I was, their lieutenant, or their captain, I will tell you, it was kind of like scripted answers. We didn't really get somewhere. They did it because they felt optically they had to. But honestly, we didn't-

• 9:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  They didn't really want to.

• 9:41Derrick Levasseur?

  They didn't want to say much. Although, to their credit, I will say this, and I apologize, I can't remember her name. But she did, at the end of that interview, she did say, "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when we're going to catch this person." And I was like, okay, good.

• 9:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I think for law enforcement, it was personal. They wanted to catch the person, but they were also very tight-lipped.

• 9:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, there were some other conversations, and we can have it more at the end of this episode, because I don't want to go off the track here. But- Understandably, there were people close to Faith who felt like this was kind of being buried a little bit because optically, just like the Idaho Four, it doesn't look great for enrollment. When you have a North Carolina student being murdered while living in an apartment, sleeping. So not a good thing, not a good thing for enrollment. So people understandably were like, okay, the Chapel Hill Police Department is working on this, but there's also a lot of donors involved in all this. And like, the, the school brings in a lot of revenue. Like, are they kind of like downplaying all this because they don't want it to deter people from coming here?

• 10:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that may have been the case. We've seen a few cases where I, I definitely think.

• 10:47Derrick Levasseur?

  I strongly believe the Idaho, I think, I think the Idaho Four, they knocked down that house because of the optics of it.

• 10:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  I do too. There's no other reason for it.

• 10:54Derrick Levasseur?

  The school wanted it gone.

• 10:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, of course. They wanted it gone. They wanted to pretend like it never happened, honestly.

• 10:59Derrick Levasseur?

  That's my opinion and apparently yours as well.

• 11:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but I mean, the police, they, they make it some mistakes. Okay. We, we should address it because the defense hammered into this at trial. Police later lost evidence connected to what appeared to be blood in the apartment's bathroom. And that's a real gap. And it became part of the defense's like, where's the rest of the evidence theme that they were focusing on? That's something that, you know, it's like, I think the police really wanted to solve this. I think they really knew optically it looked bad, not just for the college, but for them as, as a, a unit of law enforcement.

• 11:32Derrick Levasseur?

  You got DNA, you got, you, you got more than most people have in their cases.

• 11:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So that was, that was a rough one for them. And, uh, we really saw here that Faith's family, her tribe, because she's, she's Native American. Her UNC friends, they kept her name out there every single year. And that's really what I think kept this going was no one let it go quiet. There was vigils, anniversaries, rewards. They never let this, uh, settle down. So we are now going to fast forward to 2021, but before we do, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.

• 12:09Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 12:22Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, much harder to wrap though.

• 12:24Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 12:44Derrick Levasseur?

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• 12:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that makes switching a lot more appealing. I gotta be honest with you because getting a different wireless plan.

• 12:58Derrick Levasseur?

  It'd be a deal breaker if you couldn't.

• 12:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it doesn't have to mean that you're buying another phone or telling everyone you've changed your number.

• 13:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there's somebody who would still have the old phone, no doubt about it. And I, I find myself, like, I was thinking about it the last time we did a Mint ad. I was like, wait, I've had the same number since I was like 18 years old. So it would be a nightmare if I had to change.

• 13:16Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 13:36Derrick Levasseur?

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• 14:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, we're back. So in August of 2021, a man named Miguel Enrique Salguero Oliveras, then 28 and living in Durham, North Carolina, he was arrested for driving while impaired. Now, as part of that, a DNA sample was obtained from him and that sample went to the state crime lab, submitted by the SBI and Chapel Hill Police. And it matched the profile from Faith's crime scene. Some coverage also said genetic genealogy helped point investigators towards Miguel. Either way, the confirmation came from that DUI related sample. So on September 16th.

• 14:59Derrick Levasseur?

  It's all it takes sometimes, huh?

• 15:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yep. So on September 16th, 2021, nine years and nine days after Faith was found dead, Miguel was arrested and charged with first degree murder. He'd never been on the radar of the investigators. Faith's family and friends didn't know who he was. He was held without bond. And then came the part that tests every family in a case like this. They had to wait, right? Five more years they had to wait before a trial. Now, when police interviewed Miguel, they showed him a photo of Faith. He said he didn't know her, of course. What the hell else is he gonna say, right? That, that interview was played for the jury. And keep that denial in mind, the flat out, I don't know her.

• 15:41Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't know. That's how it usually starts.

• 15:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yep.

• 15:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Never seen her.

• 15:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's how it starts, which is a stupid thing.

• 15:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Wait a second.

• 15:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cause if you know her, then just say, you know, her, you know, you don't have to say, I killed her. But don't, don't just say flat out that you don't know her because it's easily disproven.

• 15:58Derrick Levasseur?

  It's the most dumbest thing you can do. Cause once they disprove that, now everything you say is up for debate.

• 16:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Keep that denial in mind because the defense's theory at trial was basically that any DNA was from a consensual encounter, which obviously is hard to square with Miguel saying, I don't know her at all.

• 16:14Derrick Levasseur?

  You don't have sex with just random strangers that you don't have a conversation with? You just put on, you don't do that?

• 16:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even if I did.

• 16:20Derrick Levasseur?

  And you don't know who the other person is?

• 16:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even if I did, after the interaction, I would assume that at this point, I know this person somewhat, right? So, I mean, like you said, unless they have masks.

• 16:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm for anybody out there, I'm being, I'm being facetious here.

• 16:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, unless they have masks and just didn't exchange names or say any word to each other, which I think maybe that happens, but probably not the most common way that you, that you meet people. So.

• 16:44Derrick Levasseur?

  You would probably recognize the person though, if you saw a picture and go, yeah.

• 16:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Derrick Levasseur?

  I remember, I don't know much about her, but I remember a picture of her from, you know, I saw at the club one night.

• 16:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but that's all you had to say, man.

• 16:56Derrick Levasseur?

  That's all you had to say.

• 16:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 16:58Derrick Levasseur?

  It's all you had to say.

• 16:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  The trial took place in Durham County Superior Court before Judge Keith Gregory. After eight days of jury selection, testimony started October 7th, 2026. The prosecution's opening was pretty blunt, a straight board. Assistant DA Angela Garcia Lamarcas told jurors his DNA was on the rum bottle. Not the DA's, but Miguel's. I know I said that weird. So Miguel's DNA was on the rum bottle, also inside Faith's body and on that note, the to go bag note. Now, the framing of the DA was that this was a stranger who killed Faith in a fit of rage, not because of who she was, but because of who Miguel is. Uh, the DA also had a line about that note that really stuck with me.

• 17:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  She tied it to the old saying that men fear women will laugh at them while women fear being raped or killed. So suddenly that jealous note, it reads less like a love triangle or, you know, a friendship and more like a wounded ego. Defense attorney James Rainsford's opening was all about doubt. He asked jurors essentially, well, where's the rest of the evidence? Like I've already talked about, he pointed to the lost bathroom evidence and argued that finding DNA doesn't prove a crime happened. You still have to connect it. Now let's talk numbers because if we're talking about connecting it, that's important. The DNA testimony was staggering. State crime lab scientist Aaron Ermish testified that the DNA from Faith's body was 170 septillion

• 18:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  times more likely to be a mixture of Faith and the defendant than Faith in an unknown person. So septillion is not a number we talk about often because it's very, very high. It's, it's, it's a one with 24 zeros.

• 18:42Derrick Levasseur?

  I had actually never heard of septillion before today, so you learned something new.

• 18:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  It sounds like a Harry Potter term.

• 18:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, septillion. Yeah, that's a good one.

• 18:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Septillion.

• 18:50Derrick Levasseur?

  This is what you guys come to Crime Weekly for, things like this.

• 18:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Prosecutors also presented fingerprint evidence. And in closing, prosecutor Lisa Coltrane said that Miguel left his DNA like confetti all over that room, which is so annoying of like, if his DNA was all over the room, like, and you guys had it? How did it take so long?

• 19:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, I mean, I, we can answer that question.

• 19:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 19:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Right? Like, we know exactly why it would take so long.

• 19:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cause he wasn't in the system.

• 19:19Derrick Levasseur?

  He wasn't in the system. Like you can have, you can have a, a bottle full of someone's DNA. But if you throw it in the database and that person's DNA has never been entered, you're screwed. And, and this person has a Hispanic background, right? So we know from doing Criminal Coffee so much with those cases. Listen, this is not just an opinion. There is always a lower likelihood of solving a case if the person is African American or from a Hispanic background. Because less people trust that database. It's mostly Caucasian people, to be honest. There's less information to pull from. So when you have someone who's of Latin descent or Hispanic, then it's less likely that they're going to have a familial match in the system.

• 20:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Cause there's no doubt they entered that DNA and they were just hoping for a distant relative to be in there. But in this case, not only did they not have the relative, they didn't have his DNA. So it sounds crazy, but DNA is still relatively new. And there's a lot of barriers to getting someone's DNA entered. We, we talk about it all the time with these genealogical databases where you can enter your own DNA. There's opt-ins and opt-outs for law enforcement to even have access to that information. So it's not as hard as you think. You can have the DNA, but if the, you, you can't match it to anything if the match isn't there.

• 20:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know, but it's just, we see so often, like a case that has so little DNA evidence or no DNA evidence. And then they can solve it quicker than this. And so, you know, it was a lot of pressure on police. Cause it was like, you got everything you need. What's happening? We have to understand the DNA is not necessarily a magic key.

• 20:50Derrick Levasseur?

  No, but I think it's so good for us to talk about it because understanding like the nuances of it and how it works. Like having DNA at the crime scene is literally only half the battle. Because it doesn't matter the abundance of DNA. Do you have the information you need in the database? Uploading it is simple, right? But once it kicks out that information, if there's no matches, there's not much you can do. It's just, it's a waiting game. And in some cases, the, the, the information you're looking for never comes. You just mentioned it. This was from a DWI. If he doesn't act like a moron and keep his nose clean and doesn't get this DWI, you and I are not here talking about this case right now.

• 21:32Derrick Levasseur?

  For this reason, at least, we're talking about it, maybe just to remind people that it's unsolved. But more than likely, Miguel goes his entire life without being caught if he's not arrested.

• 21:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, what an idiot. Now, then, the moment that surprised the courtroom, on October 21st, the defense rested without calling a single witness. Miguel chose not to testify. ABC 11 reported several jurors looked visibly surprised by this turn of events. What do you think the, the whole point of that was? I mean, it feels like at that point, the defense isn't really trying to do much, you know?

• 22:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, I mean, what can you do? If, if he did it.

• 22:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  There's something you can do.

• 22:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Like, you can't have a witness go up there and say that they were with them. Cause you don't have one of those. So there, I think they were just going off of, listen, it, it's not their burden to prove their clients innocent. It's the prosecution's burden to prove that they're guilty. And in their opinion, they thought that that threshold wasn't met and that there was enough there to, to, to rise to the level of that threshold of reasonable doubt. And, and listen, this is a crime weekly news. I mean, if you want to go back and, and watch our previous crime weekly news, but, or even just watch Breaking Homicide, there's so much more to this because.

• 22:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  We did a series on Faith Hedgepeth.

• 22:43Derrick Levasseur?

  We did a whole series on it. Okay, so dude, my memory is shot. And, well, I covered it in multiple.

• 22:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's true, yeah.

• 22:49Derrick Levasseur?

  They're all mixed together now. I bring this up because one of the problems with this case was that, that apartment that they were living in, Faith and Karina, there was a lot of people coming in and out of there. And then that complex was just very densely populated. There was, first and foremost, there were, there were double deckers, there was a first and second floor. There's apartments everywhere, there's probably, I mean, I went to the complex, I gotta say 200 or 300 apartments, and people could just come and go. And so, any single person there could have been a suspect, and anyone visiting them could have been a suspect. So like.

• 23:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  We did talk about the lax security at this place and.

• 23:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Notes, you can drive right in. And there's no cameras, no cameras whatsoever, or again, another case that would have been solved, just a $30 camera. I, I will die on this hill that these apartment complexes should be legally required for not only these reasons, but also for insurance reasons, everything else, for investigative reasons. They should be required for the safety of their, of their tenants to have these cameras, not for murders, but for larcenies and vandalism.

• 23:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Also for murders, yeah.

• 23:57Derrick Levasseur?

  For murders as well. But yeah, so like, the, the pool of suspects was unlimited here. And, and, and it was, it was very difficult to narrow down who it could have been. So I think the defense was working off that as well, because, and this isn't to, meant to be disparaging, Faith and Karina were sexually active, they had a couple of different boyfriends or people they were intimate with.

• 24:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  They were, they were having relationships.

• 24:22Derrick Levasseur?

  They were normal kids, they were normal college kids, like all of us. And so, I, I believe the defense was like, hey, listen, yes, our client had sex with Faith, but, but he's not the only one. And yes, his DNA was in the room, but there were other people's DNA was there as well. And there was some chain of custody issues with certain DNA that wasn't kept the way it should have been in the bathroom, so.

• 24:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  So that's why they're just relying on, his DNA was there, but that doesn't mean he killed her.

• 24:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 24:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, other people's DNA was there too? Did they kill her?

• 24:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. Did he drink from the Bacardi bottle with Faith prior to that? And then the real suspect used the bottle after the fact?

• 24:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but his DNA was, his DNA was inside of Faith, yeah. So you mean, they had a consensual sexual kind of.

• 25:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Over, while having a bottle of Bacardi?

• 25:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Had some Bacardi, and then she goes home and someone else kills her, yeah.

• 25:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Someone else who's jealous of Miguel comes in there and he writes the note, and he does all this, and he kills her. So I think that's what they were going off of. And, to be honest, it's an argument. It's a, it's a, it's a decent argument to make, but there's obviously more to it. And like you said, when you start off saying, I've never seen her before, you've already lost credibility, you're already a liar. And, and the question is why? Why are you lying about that when we have your DNA?

• 25:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, deliberation started Thursday, October 22nd. Jurors asked for summaries of the fingerprint and DNA reports. After about six hours over two days, on Friday, October 23rd, they came back guilty on all four counts. First degree murder, first degree rape, first degree sexual offense, first degree burglary. WRAL reported that as the verdict was read, Miguel could be heard saying, it's not fair. Poor Miguel. Sentencing happened and right away, life without parole for the murder. So, plus 64 to 89 months for burglary, 240 to 348 months each for rape and sexual offense, all to run consecutively.

• 26:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, Faith's mother, Connie Hedgepeth, gave a victim impact statement. She said the family finally had closure in peace, and remarkably that she had forgiven what happened. Ronald Hedgepeth counted the time out loud, 14 years, six weeks, four days, over 5,000 days. And a really human detail, Judge Gregory shared that his own son was a UNC student a year behind Faith at the time, and he hugged both of her parents afterward, which gave me a lot of feelings about things. Jurors later told ABC 11 that it wasn't a slam dunk in the room at first. One juror, Sandra Powell, said she and three others initially had doubts, especially about the burglary charge.

• 27:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  She described stepping outside to pray before the verdict and said that she was shaking. So now we have some other things to talk about, news that kind of came up this week. Let's take a quick break, we'll be right back.

• 27:23Derrick Levasseur?

  All right, we're back, and it was great to see the verdict. It was great to see Roland and Connie. I had actually sent Roland a text message after the verdict. We had a brief conversation. As a father, him and I, we talked a lot right after Breaking Homicide, and then while Breaking Homicide was airing, and I worked with him behind the scenes as much as I could, we did everything that we could with the case. And it was a matter of just waiting, just waiting for that, that piece of information to come that not everyone has. And so Roland is such a good speaker, and such, and such a good guy, and, and he was a big part of the show because his words had a lot of, had a lot of impact.

• 28:07Derrick Levasseur?

  And I was just happy to see him and Connie get those answers. It's not going to make anything better, it doesn't bring Faith back. But to get that, I, I like to call it not closure, but resolution, to know that the person responsible is not living their life as a free person, I'm sure there's a lot of families out there right now that would, that would kill for that, to have that.

• 28:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Just to know who the person is that's responsible, so you can stop looking at everybody Faith knew.

• 28:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, with, like a side eye.

• 28:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  With a side eye, with somewhat suspicion, because that's what I would be doing.

• 28:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, we're going to come back to that, because I have some thoughts, but I, but we'll continue, and then, then we'll come back to that as far as where we go from here, and how I feel about the verdict, and how I feel about this case, and how, to me, there's still unanswered questions.

• 28:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, well, now here's why this is news this week. On November 4th, ABC 11 reported the defense filed a 220-page motion asking for a new trial. They're also appealing the convictions and sentences, and they raised four issues. One, a crime lab report clearing Miguel of unrelated felony drug charges that the defense says the state had but didn't turn over before the verdict. They argue it affected his decision not to testify. Two, testimony from FBI Special Agent in Charge Justin Henrick, who the defense says improperly told jurors the scene showed a violent sexual assault, that DNA identified the killer, and that Karina Rosario's account had stayed consistent since 2012.

• 29:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Three, a claim that prosecutors left the false impression that witnesses who could identify a man seen at a cookout outside the apartment had returned to Guatemala and couldn't be found. So that's a reasonable doubt thing. And then four, the judge excluded a blood alcohol calculation the defense says it needed to challenge the time of death timeline. So together, they argue that Miguel was denied a meaningful chance to present a complete defense. The DA's office responded that filing the motion is Miguel's right, and NCCU Law Professor Scott Holmes told ABC 11 the motion was thorough, but overturning a murder verdict is really difficult, which I don't know if it is at the, at this point. I've seen it happen, we've all seen it happen a few times in the, in the past, I think, year

• 30:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  or so, where cases we have thought were kind of a slam dunk and wrapped up were suddenly overturned. So as of this recording, the motion is with the court, we'll update you when a judge rules.

• 30:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, so where I stand on this case is, I still have a lot of questions, because we understand the how and the who, but I'm still looking for the connective tissue in this case.

• 30:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  The why, how do they meet? How did he end up being there?

• 30:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I still have some.

• 30:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Which we would need from him, honestly.

• 30:44Derrick Levasseur?

  We would need from him, and more than likely will never get it, because that information would also require an admission of guilt. And so for me, the big question is. For a guy who didn't know Faith at all previously, how did he know, one, that she was in that apartment? Like, there's a million apartments there, like I told you guys, or hundreds, I should say. Let's not exaggerate, right? Hundreds of apartments. How does he know that, first and foremost, Faith Hedgepeth is up there? How does he know that she's alone? How does he know that her roommate, Karina, left the apartment door unlocked? Because most people don't.

• 31:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  He could have just gone into the apartment and started checking doors.

• 31:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Hand checking doors and by, but Stephanie, he would have had, like, you're going around hand checking doors. I can tell you from experience, like, when criminals are on the road, they're just hand checking doors on the, for vehicles on the street because they're walking down the sidewalk. It's easy access. There's basically a flight of stairs that you would have to take to go up there and check this door. And why this house? Why this building?

• 31:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  So here's the thing. I've seen videos even recently, over the last few years, of people who have, like, Ring cameras or some sort of doorbell camera on the outside of their apartment and, like, randomly weird people will come in and they just start trying doors. And luckily, the person whose doorbell camera recorded it, their door was locked. But sometimes people just go in and start checking doors because they want to steal something and maybe-

• 32:08Derrick Levasseur?

  God, I wish, I wish you were with me. I'm trying to paint the picture.

• 32:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Maybe he went, maybe he went in there and, and he was like, I'm going to steal something. And then he saw, oh, there's also an attractive young girl in this apartment.

• 32:19Derrick Levasseur?

  So here's the thing. I'm trying to, like, we can do up a map here, maybe, but there's this apartment complex. There's like an entrance in, right? And Faith's apartment is not only on the second floor, but it's in the friggin back of this apartment complex. Like, you would have to hand check a hundred different apartment doors before you even got to hers.

• 32:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  So you're saying it's weird that he ended up there at that specific apartment?

• 32:42Derrick Levasseur?

  It's literally in the back corner, like, behind her apartment complex and in the little parking lot outside her building is just woods.

• 32:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  So what's your belief of what happened? That he knew? How would he also know that Karina wasn't there and that she hadn't locked the door?

• 32:55Derrick Levasseur?

  There's a connection. There's a connection, in my opinion. I'm not going to go throwing around names, but I don't believe, it could have been brief, but I don't think this is the first time that this guy had ever encountered Faith. Now, what that consists of, it could have just been him in the background while with other friends. It could have been at the club earlier that evening and he followed them home. There's some connective tissue there.

• 33:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Followed them home, so he saw Karina leave.

• 33:21Derrick Levasseur?

  From the thrill. Yeah, from the thrill. I mean, I, there's something more there that allowed him to know that there was a victim of opportunity, right? That this was the apartment. Because if he was hand checking doors and, and of apartment buildings and cars, I believe there would have been another report from someone in the complex that, like, hey, this random dude came up to my door and was like rattling the handle. Like, there would be something. It seems like there was a direct line to this apartment, coincidentally, at the exact time when Karina would not be there. Because this wasn't right at 1 o'clock, right? So this means that I, I forgot what time they left the club. I want to say 1:32 a.m. And Karina didn't leave, I believe, until like 4:30 a.m.

• 34:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it was, but they said between, I think, 3:30 and 4:30.

• 34:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, cool. 3:30, 4:30 a.m. So this guy's either sitting outside or somehow he knew that the roommate was gone for the night. The detective side of me needs those questions to be answered for me to feel fully okay with this case. Because I still don't understand why Faith, why that night?

• 34:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  I would be interested to know if the person who picked Karina up that night has any connection to Miguel, which might also explain why that person said, oh, Faith had blood on her. Because maybe they're trying to, like, shift the suspicion off of Miguel. I don't know. Or maybe they told Miguel, like, I'm going to go pick up this girl and they were together earlier. Like, that would be an avenue to explore.

• 34:47Derrick Levasseur?

  I, I, I would love to know why that night? Why that time? Why that place? Because I don't know if the target was necessarily Faith. It could have been just the knowing of a, a, a young woman being alone in the apartment. I don't know. I mean, up until before this trial, I didn't even know Miguel existed. So we got the guy, but we still don't understand how we got from point A to point B. Like, how did we get there? There's just, there's just more to the story. And then, like, I get the argument that they made at trial, but to me, that note on the, on the, on the restaurant bag, that it was like the timeout or something like that, that bag, to me, still says history, something there, context, right? Like, I know it could be a psychological thing where maybe he didn't know Faith, but

• 35:32Derrick Levasseur?

  he viewed her as, as something or representing something more than the person itself. Absolutely possible. Or it could be literal. There could be backstory to it where Faith had said something about this person, maybe not even knowing who they were. I, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have those answers and those things bother me. I didn't ask Roland, and even if we did talk about it, I wouldn't share it with you guys. But I'm sure he and everybody else would still love to understand the why behind it. And I, I think that even goes, that holds true for, like, the Idaho Four. Like, you have Koberger, but we still don't understand the why. Like, we, we have a little bit more of an understanding that there was some stalking and there may have been one target and it kind of just progressed to all of them because

• 36:16Derrick Levasseur?

  they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But with this case, there was this, this small window between the time Karina left and then the morning hours when Faith, I believe, would have had to go to school. And yet, this person was right in the middle of all that.

• 36:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, absolutely. There's still more questions to answer and-

• 36:34Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't know if we'll ever get those answers, because when you look at the trial, there's other things in there, but the main thing was the DNA. And the DNA absolutely shows that he had sexual intercourse with Faith and that he was in possession of that, of the murder weapon at some point. So not looking good. I can see how the jury eventually got there, but it still doesn't explain the reasoning behind it with the motive, which I would love to understand. It could have just been sexual in nature.

• 36:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  We don't need that for a verdict, but we would like that for a little, a little kind of closed loop for ourselves, having been invested in this case for so long.

• 37:07Derrick Levasseur?

  I think for me, as an investigator, for us, as a, as a, as a show and, like, covering these cases, and also for the people watching and listening right now, like, we want to be able to better protect ourselves. And the best way to do that is to get into the mind of the monster and understand their reasoning behind what they did. Why this place? Why this time? Why her? Is there more that we don't know? Or is it just a victim of opportunity situation where maybe he's in the apartment complex outside smoking a cigarette? Okay? And he see, he knows that those two girls live there because he's been there before. And he happens on that night to be outside and he sees Karina leave and get in a car. And he's like, oh, there we go.

• 37:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Maybe no previous interaction with Faith whatsoever, but Faith was a very attractive young woman. I'm sure a lot of guys were after her. I know a lot of guys were after her, just from our brief research, a lot of guys were interested in her. And so maybe that was the reasoning. That, it could be as simple as that, but I would like to know concretely what that is. And I think this kid's too much of a coward to give that to us, but wishful thinking.

• 38:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. Well, we will keep you updated if anything new comes out. And with these motions and things like that, I'm assuming that there will be things that come out and so we'll, we'll see what happens.

• 38:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Please, let us know your thoughts. I know a lot of people were following this case. I'm sure you guys have some opinions as well. Glad to see that there's, there's justice in this case and that Faith's perpetrator, her offender is, is behind bars. We'll see how the, this motion goes. This isn't the strongest case in the world, so stranger things have happened and we'll keep you guys updated. We'll definitely do-

• 38:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  We've seen it with Adam Montgomery, right?

• 38:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Exactly. Exactly. We'll absolutely do another Crime Weekly News if there's a, a development in this case. Obviously, we're thinking of, of Roland and Connie and, and all of Faith's family and everyone affected by this. I'm sure this was a very difficult thing to go through and have to wait that long. We're thinking of them and we're thinking of everybody involved. We're thinking of you guys. Number one reason that we do this is to ensure that you guys are educated, informed, and that you can better protect yourselves and the people you care about. That's going to do it for us. We're going to be back later this week with Ashley Flynn, Part Five. It's our fifth and final part. I can finally say final part. I usually get corrected by Stephanie. You guys have been responding to the entire series.

• 39:30Derrick Levasseur?

  There's been highs, there's been lows, there's been soaking, there's been a lot of theatrical reenactments by Stephanie regarding the text messages. There's been some really cringe-worthy videos and music and songs. Man, this, this, this case is all over the place. I'm going to wrap it up later this week, but until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

• 39:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  We'll see you next time. Bye.